


Onward

by Jadesfire



Category: Doctor Who, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The other man does look older, no longer the rebellious teenager, although he’s still dressed all in black. His hair is shorter on top, longer at the sides and he carries himself differently, adding years to his appearance. He doesn’t move under the Doctor’s scrutiny, keeping his eyes on the bottle of beer on the counter, his fingers turning it slowly and carefully."I suppose I owe you an apology."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Onward

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this gif](http://tinyurl.com/cd7wuzn), which grabbed me by the brain and shook this story out of it. There’s a passing reference in here to the Seventh Doctor story _Battlefield_ , but no knowledge is required.
> 
> With thanks to Donutsweeper and Thalia for beta.

  
_My grief lies onward and my joy behind._  
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 50

They meet again in a little bar on Gantrax, just outside the Parles cluster. The Doctor promised Donna a theme park trip, something exciting to complement her relaxation time on Midnight, but after everything that happened there, he wasn’t really in the mood. Instead, he brings her to the best virtual reality suites in the galaxy and gives her a pile of tokens and instructions to call him when she runs out.

Not really feeling up to the real world, let alone an imagined one, the Doctor installs himself in one of the bars outside the suites, intent on making his drink last until Donna runs out of tokens or ideas. He’ll probably need to drink really, really slowly. The bar isn’t too busy, and he supposes most of the people in it are doing the same as him, waiting to be rejoined by someone who is having a lot more fun than they are.

Gantrax is a way-point for a lot of space routes, so the company is pretty mixed. Still, it’s something of a shock to look up and see a familiar human face on the opposite side of the bar. A young man, with short dark hair above an angular face, smiling with just a slight curl of his lips at whatever the life-form next to him had said. He laughs a little, turning his head, and when his eyes meet the Doctor’s, he starts, dropping the bottle he’s holding. The Doctor looks away.

It’s a few minutes before he hears someone climb into the bar stool next to his, and there’s the gentle chink of something being put on the glass bar.

“You should know,” the Doctor says without looking around, “that for me, it hasn’t been long. Not nearly long enough.”

There’s a considering silence, then the man says, “You came straight here?” When the Doctor nods, he hears him take a deep breath. “It’s been longer than that. For me.”

“Lucky you.” If he’s honest, the Doctor isn’t entirely sure what drink he ordered, just that it comes in the tallest glass in the bar, and therefore he assumed it would last him longest. Given he now has the urge to drain the whole thing in one go and just get up and leave, that might have been a tactical error. “How long?”

“Long enough.” There’s another pause, and the Doctor hears glass chink again. “I don’t even remember their faces any more.” There is so little emotion in the statement that the Doctor looks over despite himself. The other man does look older, no longer the rebellious teenager, although he’s still dressed all in black. His hair is shorter on top, longer at the sides, and he carries himself differently, adding years to his appearance. He doesn’t move under the Doctor’s scrutiny, keeping his eyes on the bottle on the counter, his fingers turning it slowly and carefully. “I suppose I owe you an apology.”

There are several hundred things he could say in response to that, and although the first thing that comes to his mind is _do you really think that’s enough?_ what actually comes out of his mouth is “Could you have stopped it?” Because if he’s alive now, four centuries and a few million light years from where they first met, then this is no powerless, scared teenager.

The bottle stops turning, and the man lifts his eyes to meet the Doctor’s at last. “No,” he says. “Not then.”

“And now?” It’s the obvious question, and the Doctor holds the stare for a long moment.

“Probably.” His companion breaks eye contact first, turning back to the bar. “But sometimes, you just have to forget yourself for a while. You live long enough, you don’t want to remember everything.”

It’s such an incongruous statement in the mouth of this young man that the Doctor actually huffs a short laugh. “You have no idea.”

“Really?” This time it is the Doctor who is on the receiving end of a hard look. “And what makes you think that?” There’s something so confident beneath the challenge that the Doctor hesitates. The eyes looking into his are a deep blue in the bar’s artificial light, and there is something so old and tired in them that whatever he’d been going to say dies in his throat.

As he holds the gaze, he becomes aware of something else rolling off the young man, something that sweeps through his time-sense like the weight of too many years held together, then released. He frowns.

“Who-” But that’s the wrong question. “ _What_ are you? You’re not human.”

“Really?” That makes the man’s mouth quirk in a not-quite smile again. “Maybe you have a different word for it.”

No human could have such an air of aeons about them. The Doctor can’t tell how old the man actually is, but he knows that the number outstrips his own years by some distance.

“Humans aren’t meant to live that long,” he says, trying to think. He only knows of one other human who could match this man for age, and there’s nothing of Jack’s hard-edged energy about him. “How can you bear it?”

“That’s why I need to forget, sometimes.” There is condensation running in tiny droplets down the bottle, and the man touches a finger to the pooling water. “If I can.”

He reeks of age now, of century after century, and the Doctor realises that he must have been shielding himself before. Maybe the other question was more important after all.

“Who are you?”

For answer, the man lifts his finger from the water, stretching out his hand over it instead. It covers a palm-sized patch of bar now, and as the man whispers something under his breath, he draws his hand away. Something flickers in the water.

The Doctor knows as he looks into it that this more than just a simple image. There is real power in the air, clinging to his skin and crackling on the inside of his mind. On the bar, the image in the water comes into focus.

A dark haired man is bending over a fair haired one in armour, an expression of such devastation on his face that the Doctor winces. He feels the ripple of grief, barely muted by the distance of time, and he knows that he is only feeling the barest fraction of the original. He frowns at the image as it shifts, rippling in the water and not coming back into focus until he realises the image is _of_ water, the shallow trace of a boat on a lake. As he watches, he sees more beyond the boat, the outline of an island in the distance, the tower on top.

He knows this scene, has seen this island, visited it more than once. Put that together with the power, the age, and he has his answer. The sharpness of realisation cuts through his mind, and he looks up at the other man, startled.

Merlin’s eyes are glowing gold, and he smiles sadly as he lets the power go. The Doctor can feel it the second the image dissipates and Merlin’s eyes return to their former blue.

“I'm going by Ambrose at the moment,” he says, picking up the bottle and smearing the remains of the water across the bar. “It attracts less notice. Like John Smith."

The Doctor grimaces a little and pulls his drink towards him. "You know who I am, then?" he says, trying to give himself some space to think.

"Once you know the right questions to ask, you're not hard to find. Everyone's heard of you, one way or another." He gives the Doctor a sidelong look. "You've got almost as many names as me. In fact..."

"You can't tell me," the Doctor says quickly. "Some of that hasn't happened to me yet." He's not sure yet how it all ties together, the events at Lake Vortigern that are in both his past and future, but he knows that more knowledge can only be a dangerous thing. Some stories have to play out at their own pace, his included.

As if understanding, Merlin nods. "Knowing the future doesn't always help. You can still make the wrong choice."

There’s too much truth in that for the Doctor to deny it, so he just takes a long swig of his drink, wondering if he likes the taste. Possibly not. They sit in silence for a while, the life of the bar going on around them, and it's a strange feeling. The Doctor is so used to being outside these worlds, to being the one who sees the bigger picture, has the wider perspective. He wonders what another few thousand years would add to this sense of dislocation, but decides against asking. He'd rather find out when – if – he gets there. 

Eventually, Merlin stirs.

"If you came straight here from Midnight," he says carefully, "you must have a time machine."

"Yes." The Doctor tries to keep his voice as neutral as possible, not yet sure where this is going.

"You can go anywhere? Any point in time?" There's too much hope underlying that question, so the Doctor turns his head, just enough to see how the hand resting on the bar is shaking, that there's a slight flush to Merlin's cheeks and that his eyes are still bright and shining.

"In theory, yes." He's speaking softly now, trying not to give false hope. "But-"

"I tried," Merlin says, clenching his hand as his voice catches. "I can move time, slow it down, speed it up. But I can't go back there. I can't save him."

He’s not holding back his grief any more, and it washes over the Doctor, as fresh and sharp as it must have been all those centuries ago. The Doctor knows grief, is no stranger to the mindless rage and helpless pain, but he wonders how Merlin has borne it so long, how it can still hurt him so much after all this time. He understands the sheer fury that is lying underneath the sorrow, and knows what it is like to be helpless against the implacable face of time.

“I’m sorry,” he says, moving his gaze back to Merlin’s hand, still clenched into a tight fist. “But it can’t be done. Some things must happen, and there’s just no way around it. They’re fixed points and without them, time will unravel. Atlantis must sink, Troy must burn, and Arthur must fall at Camlann. It can’t be rewritten.”

“No.” The word isn’t much more than a whisper, but the Doctor feels the push of power behind it. He shifts, uncomfortable, because this is far too close to home. He’s fought these battles with himself too many times, and while he always wins, he’s not sure he can fight them for someone else as well.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “There’s nothing I can do.”

Merlin takes a deep, shuddering breath, and for all that there are tears running down his face now, the way his fingers are slowly uncurling, hand resting flat on the bar, is probably a good sign.

“I think I knew that.” He wipes at his face, then carefully wraps his hands around the bottle again. “But I had to ask.”

“I know.”

They sit in silence again for a while, letting it settle between them comfortably this time, until the Doctor glances at the clock behind the bar.

“I should go.” Donna won’t be expecting him for a while yet, but he knows it’s time. “My friend...”

“Of course." Merlin sets his bottle down, then sets enough credits on the bar to cover both their drinks and waves away the Doctor’s offer. He smiles, faintly. “I cheat at dice,” he says by way of explanation, and the Doctor has to grin at that.

“Where will you go?”

Merlin shrugs. “Back to Earth for a while, maybe. I’d know if anything happened there, but I like to check from time to time. Just in case.” He rubs the heel of his hand against his chest absently. "Not sure after that. I don't like to think too far ahead."

Understanding, the Doctor gets to his feet. "Sometimes it's just best to let things happen one after the other."

"What about you?" There's genuine concern in Merlin's voice, and it's the Doctor's turn to shrug.

"Onwards, on to the next thing. Then the one after that." It sounds a little flat, even to his own ears.

He was expecting a platitude, maybe an expression of sympathy from one of the few people in the Universe who's actually qualified to give it, but Merlin's face is twisted into something almost unrecognisible, and when he looks up, his eyes are gold again. "And then on to your end?" he asks, then he shakes his head, face smoothing out as his eyes refocus. He blinks at the Doctor, obviously confused as his eyes fade back to their original blue. He opens his mouth again, then closes it, giving the Doctor that odd half-smile that probably means _goodbye_.

A chill washes down the Doctor's spine. Part of him wants to ask, wants to know what Merlin saw, why he spoke. If there was anything, in that instant when he seemed to look right through him and beyond, that would tell the Doctor more about whatever it is that’s coming. But the moment has passed, and Merlin doesn’t seem to even realise now that he said anything. 

So the Doctor swallows back the questions, touches his fingers to his forehead in a light salute and turns away, not waiting to see if the gesture is returned. Donna will probably complain at having her fun cut short, but he’ll think of something to make it up to her, maybe somewhere more bustling than this out of the way place.

In the door of the bar, he looks back at Merlin, who’s still sitting at the bar. There's such an air of stillness about him, as though he can't hear anything but his own thoughts. He turns slowly, eyes meeting the Doctor's and there's suddenly the rush of years again, the feeling of carrying a burden that cannot be put down and deep ache that cannot be soothed. For a moment, the Doctor sees the image from the water again, hears a lake lapping at the shores of a distant island. He blinks, surprised at how much the encounter has crept under his skin, and when he looks again, Merlin’s seat is empty.

Suddenly unsettled, the Doctor forces himself to turn away, leaving the bar behind and heading towards the VR suites. He needs to think about the next thing, not the last, and the idea was to put Midnight behind him. That's clearly not going to work in yet another clean, sleek habitat dome. They could probably both use somewhere lively, and there's got to be a city or a market out there that he could take her to, with lots of people, lots of life. The Great Bandengo maybe. Or Shan Shen. Shan Shen's always fun. 

After all, they both deserve a bit of harmless entertainment, and really, what trouble would think of looking for them there?


End file.
